Spring 2018 Arizona branch library updates
Posted: May 16, 2018
The Arizona branch campus was alive and active during Spring 2018. Adrienne Brodie, MLS offered several classes for faculty on predatory publishers and several webinars for clinical faculty/preceptors on the new OneSearch available to them. Samantha Maley finished our journals and book deselection project, and most journals, including back files, are now exclusively online. We removed six shelving units and were able to add four new study tables for student use. Kirsty Gaither, MLIS, MA, continues to prepare for our campus-wide Qulatrics rollout with the Teaching and Learning Center (Missouri, your turn is coming in September!). Lastly, we will be welcoming the Native Voice: Native Peoples’ Concepts of Health and Illness National Library of Medicine (NLM) traveling exhibit in conjunction with the National Center for American Indian Health Professions in late May/June 2018.
I attended the Medical Library Association (MLA) Summit 1: Engaging Users in a Disruptive Era in Chicago on March 6-7. The MLA InSight Initiative provides a forum for MLA leaders and participating organizations (mainly publishers) to engage in high-level, high-value dialogue on issues of common interest that impact the health information profession. This summit focused on the topics of user engagement and the barriers and challenges libraries will face in the next decade. The topics in our summit included professional social networks, new authentication methods, journal article piracy sites and discovery tools. It was a very stimulating discussion between high-level publishing representatives and leading library advocates about common problems confronting both industries. I wrote a short article for MLA News about the experience which has yet to be published.
by Hal Bright, MIRLS, director of the Arizona branch library